harold ford jr. still with us. and joining the table is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. also with us from chicago, former senior adviser to president obama, now the director of the institute of politics at the university of chicago, david axelrod. good to have you all at the table this morning. all right. >> david axelrod, putting on your hat as institute of politics guy and not barack obama communication guy, what the hell happened last night? >> well, a whole lot of nothing, obviously. >> we're trying to figure out how john boehner botched this the way he did and caused further damage to my party. >> yeah. no, they went from plan "b" to plan see you later is what happens. and i really don't know the answer to what happened. obviously, you saw eric cantor. they had confidence. they had votes. and you know, it was largely a symbolic vote anyway. because that plan wasn't going to fly, wasn't going to fly in the senate. the president wouldn't accept it. but the fact that th